Ridiculous Crime is a production of iHeartRadio.
Yo, Elizabeth Dutton in here, Saron Burnett's name and joking around McGee.
Yeah. Well, I was hanging in here with the new new intern Rosie.
Oh yeah, oh god, don't don't move quickly in front of her.
No kind of she is.
She's buddy.
So I'm glad you're here because that'll distract your a little from my hands. So I got a question for you. Yeah, do you know what's ridiculous?
I do? I do.
I'm kind of covering some road. I've already covered Pokemon, Pokemon.
Pokemon, Oh yeah, yeah, Pokemon.
And I've also talked about Cheetos before.
Yes you have, I have two of your great lovestional mashup. Hello, So there was a Cheeto that looks like Pokemon Charizard and yeah, and yeah it looks like Charizard, which I suppose it does.
It's one of those.
Flaming hot ones flaming hot jar.
So I guess everyone was like, oh my god, this looks like good Pokemon.
And then this first in Goal Collectibles got a hold of it sometime between twenty eighteen and twenty twenty two. They're being cagy about it. And they they fixed it to a customized Pokemon card encapsulated in a clear card storage box.
Oh those are the best kind.
Yeah, and then it you know, it surged in popularity on social media platforms in late twenty twenty four. According to somebody, oh the auction site anyway, it went up for auction.
It just sold. The bidder bid seventy two thousand dollars.
That's a lot of money.
It wasn't And then with the buyer's.
Premium it goes up to eighty seven and forty dollars for a Pokemon Cheeto Cheeto card in a nice collectible case. Yeah, and that one, I think it came from maybe a couple of people, But the one that was forwarded to me was from Monica on Instagram.
So thank you Monica.
Thanks Monica. Well that's a good one. I'll give you that and Monica. But you know what else is ridiculous? I got something for you.
Please please tell me when you.
Look like someone famous? Yeah, why not have fun with it?
Right?
It's all fun and games, well right up until you decide to get criminally ridiculous.
Sure is ziggy.
This is Ridiculous Crime a podcast about absurd and outrageous capers, heists, and cons. It's always ninety nine percent murder free and one hundred percent ridiculous. Yeah, I know you feel me on that, Elizabeth. You also love a good story like me about criminal celebrity lookalikes.
Correct, Oh, completely.
Right, they're always fun. Well, boys, howdy do I have some fun ones for you today?
Thank you?
Well, really, it's anyway you'll see. It's it's a bunch of them. But they're all kind of it's simple. They're related to well, I don't want to ruin it. First up, I want to tell you about a woman who was hired to perform in Sorry noam Okay, that's fun. That's not common. That's like worth taking a trip right now. The woman's name is Trina Johnson Finn, and the story goes. Trina was a career backup singer, the kind you find in Las Vegas, right, that's where she was working in
before her adventure in Surry nom Now. Over the years, she'd performed like with Barbara streisand as a backup singer. She toured with EMPs Hammer for five years.
Like a singer and a dancer, more.
Of a backup singer. Okay, now, She had her own one woman's show that ran through a cavalcade of song. Right, it's a musical history of Las Vegas. It was like a tour of the American songbook. She sings songs by Gladys Knight and the Pips. He'd cover songs by Tina Turner. She had range, right, and apparently she sang a wicked proud Mary. Now this is why she gets hired to go down to that little country there just north of Brazil.
Yeah.
Now, Trina was booked by an outfit called Events for Surreyname, and it was run by this shady promoter named Angel Ventura or on hell Ventura, which totally sounds like a made up name, right, it sounds like the kind of name you would expect for like, I don't know, professional wrestler.
All yes, totally Anyway, this cat Ventura.
He books Trina as the singer for a Tony Braxton tribute show. So she flies down for that, except he told the crowd it would really be Tony Braxton. Yeah, so Tina didn't know the real score, or so she claims. Now, she flew down to surreynam When she got there, ready to perform, she learns that the audience is expecting Tony Braxton.
Oh no, break their hearts, Sarah, exactly.
You feel me now, This poor woman, she's got a moment to decide. She's all made up, right, What will she do? Would she go out on stage and pretend to be Tony Braxton? Or would she keep her integrity tell the promoter to go get bent and fly back home to the US. I think you know what choice she d Trina decided to go out on stage. This crowd in Surryna was expecting Tony Braxton. Damn it. She was gonna give them Tony Braxton. Problem was they knew
Tony Braxton because they were fans of Tony Braxton. So she goes out there, she takes the stage, she performs her set right, her first song is apparently solid, but something just ain't right.
Well, I'm guessing it's not a huge venue.
Well it's a stadium, but it is. Yeah, it's not like a tiny club. It's like a stadium. So there's a little distance between her and the crowd. Yeah, she can kind of pull it off. But like Tony Braxton, I don't know if she's known for her dance moves. It's mostly her voice and her persona.
And the balaklava I would hope with hope.
Right. So she's out there and she can see the crowd's faces and they do not look like they're into this show. Some look confused, others look upset, some are just mad. No one's smiling though, right, So Trina tries to shake it off. Maybe her second song will win them over. So this is when the booze now start to rain down on her. Folks. In the first few rows,
they're shooting daggers with their eyes at her. Trina, though, keeps singing she's committed, you know, she's the show's got to go on, and she's on now the show, So trying like hell, she tries to win over the crowd. Then she gets hit with a glass of beer. Oh no, it's a plastic Yeah, luckily it's a plastic cup, splashes its contents all over her. That's bad. It's also very fun for the crowd. So now a glass bottle comes up. Oh that's bad. That's yeah, that's worse. Then another plastic glass,
and then another bottle and another. The crowd is fully turned on her, right, so the Trina waves for the DJ cut the music. Cut the music, right, he does. She turns to the crowd and tells them we're gonna stop the show now, which they did that exactly that, and Trina cuts out. Not only does she leave the stage, she leaves the venue.
Just who made a promise?
Exactly Also I forgot to mention, but once she was backstage, she looked for the promoter on Hell Ventura, and ode On Hell had disappeared. He was gone, right, he got the money from the gate and was whooped gone. The next day, Trina and her husband they get confronted by the local police. They're like, you know, this was straight up fraud. You got to give these people their money back. They're like, we don't have the money. They get arrested,
taken to the police station, interrogated. The day after that, oh wow, it was definitely. This is like in the early two thousand, so it was like an expensive ticket. Then the day after they get initially interrogated, they're feeling like they're pressing their luck hanging out in Surinam. Once again, they do not have the money to make this right. America, Las Vegas is essentially right, So yeah, that's in America. They trying to make a break for it. They flee
to the airport. In this desperate attempt to escape Surinam right her and her husband, the couple, they reached the airport and that's where they're confronted by police. Yet again, they're detained at the airport. They don't make it out. The promoter Ventura, though he's pulled a full Harry Houdini. Cops can't find him. He's gone. He did not go to the airport, he went some other way.
Yeah.
So the police though, since they have training, and they're like, well, it's just throw the law look at her, and so they do that. Now Trina's on the hook for all the sins of on hell. Ventura. Her husband also though, because I don't know, he's just her husband, he gets arrested, also detained for two weeks. He's locked up. Finally, after two weeks are like, we have nothing on this guy.
So they send him back to America. But meanwhile, in that two weeks time, he lost his job because he was a realtor and his employer was like, man, we don't need a realtor who's like cooling his heels into jail and Surinam. Yeah, so he gets back and then what's he has to do now is get his wife freaked because she's still detained and the authorities have no immediate plans to let her go because they do have charges on her. So her husband flies back to America
without her. Once he's home, he begins selling the couple's few assets to raise money to fight her case.
Oh my god.
Yeah.
Now, so, Elizabeth, I don't know if you've ever spent time in jail, or specifically jail and surinam, but I know you don't. I didn't want to put you on the spot an embarrassing front of producer Dan. But let me tell you it's no country sleigh ride right Anyway, Trina caught all kinds of hell when she was locked up or calling her time behind bars. I found a quote from Trina she explained how a quote, it was like being locked up in a very poor country like Jamaica.
If you can imagine that, it was very nasty, run down. The toilet was not working, so it's said, yeah, so instead of her proper john, though, Trina was forced to use a small metal bucket as her toilet. A bucket, Elizabeth, Yeah.
That's what I have?
Really? Is that what that is in your car. Well, see, I always wonder where do you empty the bucket? Do you throw it out the cell window like you live in a medieval castle, or did this someone come around with like a honeywagon. You go like empty it twice like a day, Like how does that work with the bit.
In the corner of a Walmart parking lot?
Not your bucket, fair bucket, their bucket.
I don't know. I'm gonna guess they throw it out the window.
Okay, the prison or the jail. Well, anyway, back to Trina, enough bucket. She also remembered how bleak the living conditions were in her cell, and she wanted to talk about that, so she focused on the shower. She was very liquid focused, so she Trina said, the rooms were just nasty. I had an old bed that was extremely hard. You showered by catching water coming out of the faucet in a bucket and washing down that way.
Their buckets buckets, and the buckets are multipleower your bucket.
They're like, oh man, yeah, my shower.
But I wonder what was the lighting like? Was that tough to imagine?
It was diom So Trina's time in jail seems like a rather excessive punishment for pretending to be Tony Braxton. But despite what she had, she had to suffer for putting on this fake show. Trina tries to survive her new life after lock up. Now after she and her husband, they keep trying to fight her case, right, so he pays for lawyers. She gets herself some local lawyers. She is also hoping her story of wrongful incarceration might go viral and help her to get free. That did not happen, Elizabeth.
So she's down.
There because something went wrong there.
You go, well, worse than that for her, since you know, she's not getting viral fame for her suffering, and and they started on. No one seems to care about the fate of this phony Tony Braxton forre and a half months behind bars. Finally, Trina's case goes to trial in May of two thousand and nine. That's when a miracle occurs. A miracle. Elizabeth, the ever mysterious long presumed disappeared promoter on Hell Ventura reappears on the scene. Oh really, yeah,
better than that. He shows up in court. Trina tells it. Quote, they said they found him, but I think he just turned himself in and had probably paid a lot of people off to avoid taking responsibility for this. Well, so when paying people off failed, he finally agreed to face the music. So back to Trina quote, I don't think there's any big man hunt for him, but the prestice was generating internationally forced them to take a look at the real evidence. And we had a contract specifically stating
that I was a tribute act. He basically got called out and had to turn himself in.
So where was this contract? Couldes she show the police?
Apparently I don't ask. I guess maybe he still hasn't his BF case and she's like, look at his briethdays find the contract. I do not know the details were scarce got it? Got it? So once they do have this slippery promoter on the witness stand, as I am imagining it, he confesses to his part in the fake Tony Braxton scam concert, gets convicted, sentenced to two and a half years in prison. Wowrin sur on prison with the.
Buckets of bucket.
I hope you like buckets, buddy, so is Trina. She gets sent home to America, where she returns to Vegas and her one woman tour of the American songbook, So they're happy ending for her, right, Yeah, Trina, Now I've got a much bigger surprise for you, and this one that was about to tell you. It's a series of stories, but they all involve a very famous man who is Snoop Dogg's uncle.
Is Snoop Dogg's uncle is famous?
Yeah, let's take a little break and after these beautiful, beautiful lads we will be back. I'll tell you about this famous man who is Snoop Dogg's uncle.
All right, Elizabeth Zaren do you figure out who Snoop Dogg's famous uncle was?
No, you really don't know? You have any guesses? U? No, Well, the stories will be about folks who pretend to be Snoop's famous uncle, not actually about Snoop's famous uncle.
That was it his uncle on his mother's side or his father's side.
I didn't examine his last name, Brotus. I didn't examine the actual genealogy. They just both claim each other as nephew and uncle.
Oh was it like play uncle?
No?
I think I think it's real. I don't think it's play. I think it's real. I'll give you a hint. His name rhymes with cutesy rawlins. What, Yes, Bootsy as in Collins Uncle, the Calvin brotus aka Snoop Dogg.
How in the what I know?
Right?
Yeah? Everything I found that I could find online. It could not find like their sestry dot com, but I.
Found I don't know what you're going to talk about ahead of time. I will go on to ancestry dot com after this.
Yeah you should. Yeah, I don't even have it like a log in. So bootsy seks to be the word bootsy is slang that you use all the time. What does bootsy mean to you?
To me? When I say something is bootsy, it's you know, it's a less than high quality.
It's it's kind of janky.
Okay, another one, all right, so that's a synonym for bootsy.
Think you know, uh poor quality? Gross?
Okay, now we got a definition. Yes, I guess all right, Well I feel I feel like whenever you say it, I totally get what you mean. But then also I obviously think of Bootsy when I hear it, I think of Bootsy Collins. So when I say bootsy as in Bootsy Collins, what do you picture? What do you imagine?
I imagine huge platform boots, and like star shaped sunglasses. Yes, Bootsy.
How about his star based that he nicknamed space.
Bas Yes, space based?
Well a little just about Bootsy. He was born William Earl aka Bootsy Collins. He was born nineteen fifty one. His mama nicknamed him Bootsy. He once asked her, like, why did you name your baby boy Bootsy?
Right?
Because I imagine like you was. It doesn't sound like it's exactly a compliment. His mama told him, and I quote because you looked like a Bootsy And he said, I left it at that, you know, mama said, So Bootsy's Collins. He's He first came to prominence in James Brown's band, the JBS. Right now. He played on a raft of James Brown's legendary songs. Hey, I'll tell you a couple of them. Get up. I feel like being a sex machine. He was on super Bad, He's on
Soul Power. So like right when James is getting funky, he's there. He's the one who introduces or helps introduce the funk. He gave those tracks. That's super funky. So him and his brother Catfish Collins low End. Yeah, Now, as you might imagine, working for James Brown was no picnic in the park. Her stories, I imagine right now it is. Bootsy remembered it in one colorful story about
his time with the Godfather's Soul. He said, and I quote, he treated me like a son, and being out of a father this home, I needed that father figure and he really played up to it. I mean, good lord. Every night after we played a show, he called us back to give us a lecture about how horrible we sounded. Not on that son. I didn't hear that one. You didn't give me the one. He would tell me this after every show. One night we knew we wasn't sounding
really good. We were off, and he called us back there and he said, oh, now that's what I'm talking about. Y'all was on it tonight. You hit the one. My brother and I looked at each other like this mother has got to be crazy. We knew in all heart and soul that we wasn't all on that show. So then I started figuring out his game. Man by telling me that I wasn't on it, he made me practice hort up. So I just absorbed what he said and used it in a positive way. So that was about how he did it.
I like that I didn't.
I needed a father figure, someone who would criticized him needless.
A real tough, hard hand is what I'm looking for. James Brown, like I keep my hands strong. So he got this tiny tyrant James Brown, right, who's just like a bound muscle of aggression on stage and off right. So in the meantime, Bootsy, he's trying to handle the stress of dealing with his boss and now he's like, you know, newfound and growing fame as a musician, so he chooses to self medicate. His medicine of choice was LSD. Oh, that's an interesting as Bootsy tells it, LSD was a
big part of why I left James Brown's band. I promise myself I'd never do it during a show, but we had a father son relationship, and he pestered me so much not to do it that one day I just did. My base turned into a snake and I can't even remember playing. After he called me in the back room as he always did and was explaining how terrible I was, even when I wasn't taking LSD. I laughed so hard I was on the floor. To him, that was very disrespectful. He had his body God throw
me out. So he's high in LSD and he gets thrown out of James.
Brown's the tech bro micro dos.
No, he's doing MAXI dosing MAXI do. Yeah, He's like, how many he did? He says he did elist every day for two years.
What, yes, Bootsy, I don't think that's healthy.
No, but it helped him decide it was time to move on from James Brown. Okay, Boots it is. It helped him to see things in a new way, give him new perspectives and insights. He stayed with James bound for about a year, but I think it's like eleven months. No, he and his brother, Catfish Collins, they split from the band. What a great pair of names, right, these are my sons, Bootsy and Catfish. So next up the brothers Bootsy and Catfish.
They joined George Clinton's band, Parliament Funkade. Now that's where Bootsy becomes a superstar, right, that's where we think of him with the star shaped sunglasses, the yeah, you know, the platform heals. So George Clinton, obviously he appreciates all the way out there antics in the funky bass of Bootsy Collins. So Bootsy stayed with George Clinton in Parliament Forkadelic for the rest of the seventies and into the eighties, and together they make the funkiness into a cultural revolution.
So over the years, Bootsy tries on many many personas, like there's boots Zilla, right aka quote the world's only Ryan Stone rockstar, mon still of a doll. So because of course, you know, Bootsy would see himself as an alien rock star. Sure has come to Earth to spread the gospel of funk. It's all that makes sense, right, I mean, it's right there, Elizabeth. So over the years, obviously there are other personas. One that was all mentioned
was Casper the Funky Ghost. Okay, that's me, Yeah, Bootsy Collins. He's always on. He was one of a kind basically, right, which makes it super wild that there were a bunch of people who tried to impersonate him, like a bunch Yeah, they called him almost Bootsies like. Some did it well and some were surprisingly successful, others not so much. So it started off when Bootsy heard about this one cat out there who kind of looked like him, and he
was charging money to sign autographs at events. Like he would go to some small city and he'd find a nightclub or a Ants Club and he posts up there. Then he'd start to like greet his fans and he'd shake some hands and if anyone wanted an autograph, he's like, oh, that'd be five dollars or whatever.
Oh my god.
Yes.
So his manager, Bootsy Collins manager Archie Ivy recalled quote there were Bootsy sightings all over the place where Bootsy wasn't So now what was Bootsy's initial response, Well, according to Ivy, we just shrugged it off and said, boots he's a real star. Now, we didn't take things seriously.
Well, that is a good point. That shows what a star you are.
That totally people want to be you.
Well, and I think because he doesn't like if you asked me to pick his just plane face with no hair out of a lineup.
I couldn't do it.
Be very difficult. He usually's wearing a sequin top hat. Yes, star shaped sunglasses. You just see a bit of a slender black face.
Yes, So if you have the same build, then yeah, you just put the accessories on and yeah, speaking come Bootsy.
George Clinton tried it on for a weekend.
It's maybe it's like santy Claus.
Kind of Bootsy clubs George. As I was saying, George Clinton, his bandmate been Parliament falcadelic. He found it all hilarious that people wanted to be Bootsy, so you know he would he said, and I quote, I thought it was funny that someone got away with it that far, right, now, George Clinton, he also tried to, as I said, be boot become Bootsy, and to see what he could get away with. So, as he remembered it, one time he was backstage and he tried to make some young woman
laugh and he put on the Bootsy costume. And George Clinton tells the story and I quote, somebody came to see Bootsy and they had never seen him up close. And I put on the star glasses and said yeah, Bubba, which was one of the trademark catchphrases of his persona boot Zilla. So I was with the girl for two or three days before Bootsy showed up. I told Bootsy I was him. So he says right to boss face, and.
He's just like, oh wow, okay, No, of.
Course everybody in the story is kite high.
Well, it's like.
When I was little and growing up, we'd be driving and if we saw a car exactly like ours, same make model color. My mother would say to us, Oh, maybe that's us and we just don't know it, And that just messed with my.
Head so badly sent your little head slide right.
Yeah, I'd be like, oh what if it is?
Yeah, parallel universe right there. I hope we make it.
You know, she got there.
Now speaking about there. But my man Bootsy, as you point out right, he was a bit easier to imitate because his look is so iconic and so people it's largely a costume. People just need the star shape, sunglasses and uh. As his manager Ivy points out, it wasn't like impersonating prints where he had to worry about height. With Bootsy, you make yourself tall with platform boots, put on a top hat and the star glasses and a
lot of shiny stuff. Bootsie's voice is basically a cartoon character, so if you had the right phrase and attitude, I can see it being pulled off.
Yeah.
So, now if you ask Bootsy what he thought about all this sudden wave of imitators, he'd tell you, as he once told Rolling Stone, and I quote, at first, I thought it was funny until some close friends started to tell me about how the almost Bootsy started to rip people off because he's very positive. It's fun when people are having fun. But now they're out there trying to like scam in his name. He's like, that ain't right now, that ain't Bootsy. So Bootsy did he get
to have some fun with it? Right? He even offered his fans their very own Bootsy costume, like his nineteen seventy eight album he had was called Bootsy Player of the Year right. That album included a pair of fake star cut cardboard sunglasses. A fan could cut them out and become Bootsy. So this obviously led to Bootsy saying at the time, it seems that in the past year there's been a lot of fake teers running around almost Bootsies who's been trying to.
Be me.
Bakaders. Yeah, because obviously the funketeers is to play on. So Bootsy Uh. The very next year, for his next album, This boot is Made for Funking', he had a song called she Jam parenthetical almost Bootsy show. So he addressed it directly and in the lyrics Bootsy sang and I quote without singing, said everyone they were almost Bootsy decked out in the staw shaped shades, little boys and girls. They were almost Bootsy shining all over the place. So
there you go. That was some cute fun for Boots.
That's great.
So anyway, one of the almost Bootsies that we've been you know, teasing out, they walked into the headquarters of Warner Brothers Records in Burbank. The almost Bootsy he told someone in Warner Brothers office, I'm Bootsy and then said I'm luck my next royalty check.
Oh, like it didn't get delivered to the house.
I guess can I just can I cancel that one? Just issue me a new one.
I was traveling, I thought I just come right to the office.
To make it easier on you.
So the folks at Warner Brothers, they were used to odd behavior from Bootsy, right, Oh yeah, but this was unprofessional, right, and a little more than sus So the folks at Warner Brothers they call Bootsi's manager, Archie Ivy, and the manager when he hears that Bootsy is in a Burbank in the Warner Brothers office asking them run me my check.
He thought it was because Bootsy knew his royalty checks were distributed by his company and not by Warner rog so yeah, the manager recalled that he'd just spoken with the funketeer himself just two days prior in the Cincinnati area. Then the reason why this matters, Elizabeth is that Bootsy was afraid of flying. He would avoided at all costs. Yeah, so he would have driven across country from Ohio to California, and that most likely would have taken longer than two days.
Yeah.
So Ivy the manager, he had the execs Warner Brothers stall this almost Bootsy who was asking for the royalty check that the execs from the label. They did as requested. They stall him, but they left him alone. Right, So then they go they go back to the call. Okay, we stalled him, and then they go back to him and they're like, wait, where'd he go? Yeah, he took off gone almost Bootsy, he bootsied out the door. But he was not the last almost Bootsy because there were
actually there were quite a few. As George Clinton recalled, there was this funny thing was how when he wasn't on stage, Bootsy was not so outsized. You know a lot of performers, but people always imagined he was Bootsy twenty four to seven. So Bootsy was actually rather shy. So it was kind of the tell if you knew boots he was if he's being outsized when he's not in a stage setting, it's not Bootsy.
That's like me, you know. It's like, I'm so hyper infrenetic on this show.
So exactly the place I'm like, Elizabeth climbed down from the walls.
Right, and so we're scaring in the in the world.
May meet you, and you're just a very calm today. Kashmir sweater.
You wouldn't believe it.
Yeah, wearing track pants exactly. George Clinton framed it. Bootsy was shy. He couldn't have been to all those parties, but people wanted to see Bootsy and be with them. I went to a few places and people would say, I just saw Bootsy. They might have been a couple of them. So they're just Bootsies popping up everywhere. Yeah, I just showed up with the glasses, the hat. I'm Bootsy. So just imagine a world with a multiplicity of Bootsies, right,
would that be good? And that's like we need one? Yeah, that'd be kind of insane. But rather than picture that, Elizabeth, I thought I'd take you up run and personal to your very own almost bootsy sighting. Yes, Elizabeth, I'd like you to close your eyes. I'd like you to picture it. Elizabeth. It's the early nineteen eighties and you were seated at a corner table in a nightclub in Washington, DC. The crowd is a mix of the hip and the hangers on.
All around you, you can hear men and women's laughter, low conversations, glasses, plank lighters, spark to life, to burn, the business end of a cigarette. At the moment you're seated at the corner table, the coolest people in the room. Most of the folks with you are musicians just like you. You're the drummer in a local funk band, and at the moment you and the rest of your band are absolutely giddy because seated with you is the one and only Bootsy Collins, the master of the space bass himself.
He's wearing his signature star shaped sunglasses, his sequin top hat, and at the moment he's telling you stories about hanging out with the famous folks whose names you know. In the music you revere, He's mentioned playing gigs with James Brown and the JB. He talks about his time with the Atomic dog George Clinton playing in jams with Sly but without the family stone. The weird part, though, is how Boots he keeps bad mouth and everyone he's ever
played with or worked for. At the moment, Bootsy is drunk, loud talking. Bits of spittle hit your face as he tells you how James never understood that Boots he ain't from planet Earth. Boots is from planet for Gozella, the known home planet of the one and only boots Zella. You dig babies now, ignoring the bits of liquor up the spittle as he talks, It's fun to take a trip down memory lane with Bootsy. Here's someone who seems
to note just about everyone in music. However, it's still a bummer how he has almost nothing good to say about any of them. His mood switches on a dome with a great flourish Bootsy holds up a credit card and waves it around like a composer's baton Boots, he says loud enough for all the nightclub waiters to hear, We're gonna have fun with this plastic Yeah, now, indeed you all do. Another round of drinks is ordered, more food is ordered. When the flaming drinks arrive at the table.
You blow out yours and take the first sip. You think to yourself, it sure feels good to party with music Royalty. There's a band getting set up on stage in this little nightclub. Someone in your party spots this development. It says to Bootsy, you should get up and grab a base and funk this place up. Bootsy laughs at the idea, ha ha, like it's a big joke, but you won't let the idea go. You keep nudging Bootsy to take the stage into unleash the Bootzilla on this crowd.
Boots he just keeps laughing.
Ah.
But it's like it's the funniest idea is ever heard. But it's not that funny anyway. Bootsy turns to you and asks, how are you fixed with cash? Now? He says he happens to be caught riding low on the greenbacks. He says he just has his credit cards on him, but he needs some walking around money for Bootsy. Now, could you loan boots Is some bucks? The question throws you, and you hear yourself say, without thinking, what about your royalties? Can't you just like ask for a line of credit
at a bank against them? Boots He laughs off the idea, ha ha ha, same as when it was suggested that he should play the bass on stage. Boutsi just says, does anyone else in your band have any cash? A little something to help out Bootsy? Now you're getting annoyed. Why is this rich rock star trying to pull dollars out of your band's gas money? So you say to Bootsy, aren't you loaded? You're Bootsy? That elicits another big Bootsy laugh.
Bosieck loves that. Now the master of the space base says, if that's right, baby Rom Bootsie Tom next up Planet funk Azilla. He excuses himself to go to the bathroom. The band is nearly set up. Now you wonder what Bootsy will think of them. But you never find out because boots He never comes back to the table. In fact,
you never see him again. And it turns out, even though he waved his card around, he never actually paid for all the drinks and the food that he ordered for the table, which means you and the band have to pick up the tab for Bootsy. So much for the band's gas money. Oh man, So, as you might guess, that was not the real Bootsy Collins. Did you party with in DC, Elizabeth? You spent the night with a high dollar almost Bootsy. Did you have fun? Right? There
was a lot of fun though. Yeah. Sure, Okay, let's take a little break and after these messages we'll be back with more fake bootsies, Elizabeth. As we've covered Bootsy, my man Bootsy, Your man Bootsy a bit outsized, also a bit shy. You enjoying the stories of I am the dichotomy of the Funkozoa. Now, when Bootsy obviously was off stage and feeling shy, he was still Bootsy that interestingly, though he would be dressed as the space alien funketeer, he would just tone down his behavior and use his
normal talking voice. He'd be at home wearing his star sunglasses and some outrageous shiny outfit. His booking agent actually remember, and I found this quote from him. He said, I never saw him running around in Bermuda shorts and a tank top. He was always Bootsy, So you know, bermudas and a tank I don't know what's why he goes with right, it's very early eighties, I guess you know, you can make sure a lot.
Of people, well, you can either dress like that or you can dress like Bootsy. Those your only choice.
In nineteen eighty two, that was the choice, that was the law. So as you can probably hear, it's not easy to become such a character and not lose kind of like a sight of yourself or part of your humanity. And the even more extreme cases, which is what Bootsy was worried about, was happening to him. Yeah, Plus he's taking acid every day for two years. So eventually, by the early eighties, after a decade at the Heights of Funk,
Bootsy decided he was over it. Right as he told Rolling Stone, and I quote, I got so tired of living up to the Bootsy character. I'd become a so called star. I just didn't know how to handle it. So it was a real crisis for the residents Space Alien And as he later told The Guardian, and I quote, I got worn out from being Bootsy going into the eighties, I was trying to get away from him. He was hitting up the festivals, the stadiums, headlining for one hundred
thousand people. He was like a monster. The business side got really big and ugly because I didn't know what I was doing. I was just there to play music and the next thing I knew everything had turned around. Now this leads to a crisis for Boozy. Right at this point, he's still gobbling acid like you know, like it's Flintstone vitamins. So this is becoming a problem for him. Eventually he has a bad motorcycle accident. Now he may or may not have been asked on acid at the time.
I could not get that straight. But could you imagine crashing on a motorcycle on LSD?
Oh?
God, right, are you just tripping and all of a sudden, like I just can't imagine. I was thinking about that. Yeah, And it slows down fat and then you just like then you feel your skin grab against the pavement and then it's like, oh my skin, where did it go?
So the shame of all this is that while others were out having fun being almost to Bootsies, the real deal is stuck being Bootsy and he felt like it was a private hell to be Bootsy, And unlike the almost Bootsies, he can't take off his costume and stop being Bootsy because it's now a part of him, right, all right, So, but he did step back from the character he creates nineteen eighty two, he leaves the party life behind. He settles down on the twenty three acre
ranch back in Ohio near Cincinnati. Yeah, his mama told him to take off his top hat and his star sunglasses and just be her boy Bootsy again, be himself, right, you beaus up, baby boy. Now. Two years later, nineteen eighty four, he decided he should probably also stop doing drugs. Probably not just the ranch.
Advisable when you're on the ranch, the drug.
Yeah, that's basically what he came to, he said, and I quote, I throwed all my drugs away and I stopped taking them. That's when it started to become clear what I needed to get back to, which was the music. So what meant for him keeping the costume off was that Bootsy was seeing walking around his home in the bermuda shorts and the tank tops. Eventually worrying what people might call normal clothes, right, so he puts the star sunglasses of the rhinestone top hats in a spare room.
But not only that, he locked the door. Oh really, he shuts his past self away behind a padlock. Meanwhile, the almost Bootsies don't know this, so they're still going around the world being full tailed Bootsies, still claiming to be him and one of his new musical collaborators around this time, he recalled his early eighties phase Bootsies, and he described all these almost Bootsies, and he recalled what Bootsy told him. And this is a quote of Bootsy
from somebody else. Okay, so yeah, those mothers tried to impersonate me, but they didn't get too far with it. He would laugh about things like that. He was telling everyone to be Bootsy, but so when somebody did it, he didn't really bother him much. Yeah, but the strangeness of the almost Bootsies persisted. Right now, we're into the eighties, go go, let me see what I can get away with.
Sure it starts getting to leaving the uglier right. So, one of the almost Bootsies, well, this is probably one of the last silly moments. He dropped off some laundry, said he claimed to be Bootsie Collins. I guess he just wanted laundry. Yeah, he wanted Bootsy to pay for his dry cleaning. I guess, like I think he thought maybe Bootsy had like an account there. Maybe he saw Bootsy go there and he's like, let me just drop off my drag.
Cleaning, the getting like a sparkly pants drike clean.
Yeah, I do not know, but it was. It was one of the stories mentioned that I thought was interesting. Another one that was a kind of ticklish was they had a fax machine in their home in Cincinnati because it's nineteen eighties, and so someone faxes them and wanted
to perform a Bootsy check. It was someone in La telling people that there was Bootsy Collins, right, So someone faxed over to the house his Bootsy home, right, And so the almost Bootsy had checked into some luxury hotel like I'm imagining, like on Wilshare Boulevard, right, and they were demanding a free room and free room service. And his wife, who receives this fact, right, she calls back to La and it's like, no, he's here at home. He is not there, right.
So meanwhile, when he doesn't sound like the type who's like, give me a free room exactly.
But people don't know, like the person who's working the front desk, the this is this is star behavior. They're all like this or whatever, and they move along and they approve it. So the the guy gets away with it. The almost Bootsy gets a free night, a hot meal and everything else. And his wife not as amused as Bootsy would have abused. She was super annoyed by this right because now they're starting to make it's a bad name,
it's a bad look. The press may get confused. So another call comes to the house, this time from Vegas. There were reports of yet another almost Bootsy. His wife super annoyed with this one because the Vegas Casino hotel had complied and given Bootsy the free room the room service. Once again bad behavior on his parts. And now she's like, that's not Bootsy, it's the impersonator. She's like yelling at people. She wants there to be like a Bootsy block. So
my favorite almost Bootsy was in nineteen eighty eight. They went to the New York Music Awards. He went as Bootsy. He proceeded to hang out with other celebs, music stars, gets in, He parties with Lou Reed, he laughed with Paul Simon, he posed with ll Coolja. Yes, there was another enclosed encounter with this same almost Bootsy in a hotel in Manhattan. A bass player who knew Bootsy heard
his friend was in the hotel. So he comes over to the law and he's like, and he sees Bootsy because you're gonna see Bootsy and Apel lobby, right, So he goes over to him and he's like, and I quote, I knew what Bootsy looked like. I see it all the interviews and had the poaches on my wall as a kid. He's staying in the same hotel as Miles. I was like, God, damn it, it's him. It's got
to be him. So he goes over to him, right, he tries to speak to Bootsy and he sits his hero, and his hero is acting funny, not quite like Bootsy. This almost Bootsy is like trying to like, oh, is there a bathroom around here? Right? So he tries to like slip away, and he manages to get out right. But that's not the end of this story, because that same almost Bootsy tried to like cad your ride with
the young bass player and his band. He did get in the van with him and rode with them all the way from New York to Washington, d C. So I'm thinking, this is our Washington d C. Almost boots. They get to d C, the almost Bootsy and the young musicians, they hang out. They're like, hey, he's like, oh, what where are y'all staying? Right? So maybe didn't notice it at first because there's so stoke that Bootsy wants to chill with them, They're like, oh my god, he's
still wants to hang This is dope. So time passes though, they're like, hey, darting to divvy up beds or whatever, and people are like, hey, Bootsy, you're gonna go to get your own adort? Should we call you a cab? The keyboardist in the band, who also meanwhile hero worship Bootsy, he recalled how and I quote, I'm thinking, here's this established famous musician, what's he doing hanging with us? Why aren't we going out to a proper dinner and then
saying goodbye? Like normal, if you ran into one of your heroes, you'd hang out. Who wouldn't turn into a twenty four to seven thing? This almost Bootsy much time with the hero exactly? Dude? Do you never want to meet your heroes, especially when they're not really them, like a fake one of your heroes? Even once? Yeah, so this almost Bootsy. He wants to talk, of course, industry gossip,
so he starts running down people. He wants a dish about how James Brown screwed him and George Clinton screwed him. Then he asked this young band, oh, do you guys have a little cash for Bootsy? And then of course he disappears, never to be seen again. Yeah, smash cut Annah. I'm California at the Annual Music Convention, which is a national association of music merchants. Yeah, there's a guy there who damn sure look like Bootsy. But not only that,
he's telling everyone he's Bootsy. So he's going around this convention of music basically people selling guitars and basses and drums. So this friend of Bootsy's who is there at NOM. Here's the people shouting, Oh, Boots, he's here, Boots, He's over there. I just saw a Bootsy. He's like, oh, I didn't know Bootsy was in Anahem. I thought he was back in Cincinnati. So, as the friend tells it, I would say, what are you talking about. He's in Cincinnati,
he was here five minutes ago. So the friend tries looking all around this Noom and he never catches up to the almost Bootsy, but he did find the trail of fraud that the almost BOUTSI left bey, Yes, this fake funketeer got away with about ten thousand dollars worth of even as guitars. Yeah, he had them. He arranged for them to be sent to a po box in Louisiana. There were also invoices from Limo companies. And then y Bootsy's wife finally hears about this one. She's pissed again.
She tells the story, quote, he got away with a lot, from what I'm told, thousands and thousands of dollars negative energy. It was very disheartening. Yeah, So despite what his wife said, Bootsy still remained a little amused by all the crime and hijinks to being done in his name. One former collaborator,
he was telling the story to Rolling Stone. He said, quote, we used to talk about that constantly, and every day someone to say we heard he was in this place, so he was here, and Boots he was always smiling about it. And then when everyone found out that guy was pulling a lot of endorsements, meaning he was getting a lot of gear, everyone was sinking, Well, maybe that's not cool because he couldn't sell that stuff. I don't
know why that's the line. He could sell that stuff, like we don't want him profiting off being almost Bootsy. So this same New York based Washington d C Corridor Almost Bootsy, Yeah, he would continue to contribute to the growing legend of the almost Bootsies around the country. One time, another friend of Bootsies was in New York City and the friend was convinced, or rather conned by Almost Bootsy. This guy was that good, This guy actually knew Bootsy hanging out with him.
Oh, you're kidding.
The musician, this guy, Freddy Perez, said, quote, you couldn't tell the difference in his appearance and the way he spoke. He used the same words Bootsy used, even the sound of his voice everything. It was wazing. So since he was convinced, and since he was a musician, Perez was like, hey, Bootsy man, why don't you get up there and slap your bass around? So, as he put it, I said, I want to hear the funk. So the response was he declined, very.
Strange, ahead and decline.
Yeah. What was stranger is while he was in DC, this New York based Almost Bootsy did sit in with a band. There's reports of him going up on stage and sitting in, but he didn't play his bass. Instead, he just sang because you know, everyone wants to hear Bootsy sing. No one's like, hey, sit your bass down for this one. Come on, Bootsy, give us those those velvety tones. You know, what do you know of the
American songbook. So this same almost Bootsy he continues rampaging up and down the Eastern Seaboard, hopping in vans with young bands, playing shows as a singer. So finally the real Bootsies team has to spring into like legal action. Yeah, and they tried to put the kaibosh on this almost Bootsy. So this is what the basically the point, This almost Bootsy goes to the mattresses right like like they say,
and the Godfather. So now that they know it's a war, so they're trying to get CAGI, so they try to catch up to them in a New York and a night spot. Almost Bootsy was there. He was celebrating the fans, right, and then he's like he was sitting on a complimentary champagne that he was getting from the management. The whole bit, right.
The DJ was there playing his new song because boots he had a new song out, and it's just like in this dance club, a couple of days later, an executive calls that club and it's like, hey, how's Bootsy's new song? Doing DJ's like, I got the craziest news Bootsy was in the club, and the labels X like what, Yeah, that's impossible. What are you talking about? Are you kidding? So he calls Bootsy's wife. He's like, was Bootsy in like whatever club? And she's like, no, he was in
a whole other stage. Yeah, exactly disconstantly is this Bootsy the one eight hundred numbers she's got set up? So the exact he calls back to the DJ, right, and the DJ's like, well, I got that guy's number. I got Bootsy's number because I asked him, right, he was exactly, Oh, give it to me. I'd like to talk to Bootsy and he's like, of course, right to DJ, he's now. The exec gets the number from the DJ, slips it to the authorities. The authorities like top up and they
call it up dead end. There was it was a fake number he had slipped them. They're like, oh, yeah, he's my number, right. So Bootsi's people at this point they're really trying to like close their net on the New York and Washington DC area, they find someone who knows them or says they know him. They pass a message like this is like back channel US Soviet nuclear negotiations. Right, So they find somebody who says they know him. They're like, well,
give them this message. Meet us at this time. They arrange a meeting. He shows up. Yes, one of Bootsy's people is there, and they took it well, a couple of people, and they took it very personally. What the almost Bootsy had been up to. Yeah, right, as his manager Ivy tells the story, the man from there was another man there from Bootsy's team, this guy named Waller, right, and so Bill Waller he goes medieval on this almost
Bootsy like he was. Ivy tells it. Bill was from the old school, and I'll just say he used.
Old school rules.
Like Bill definitely wasn't Shug Night, but he wasn't anybody you'd wanted to take lightly. So Yeah, there was some talk later about getting the FBI involved. Rolling Stone even submitted a Freedom of Information Act. I found a request that they submitted one of their reports on this, and the reporters were told by the FBI that the bureau could quote, neither confirm nor deny the existence of such records, So I'm going with the idea. There was some investigation
almost now, the reports of his appearances. They started to calm down in the late eighties, they seemed to go away, and then all of a sudden, nineteen ninety rolls around Reggae Sunsplash festival in Jamaica, Elizabeth Bootsy gets spotted bringing the funk to Reggae Sunsplash. Yeah. The next year there were reports Bootsy was in la He was allegedly trying to put on a benefit concert for veteran into the
First Gulf War. He contacted a British band called The Alarm, and he tried to ye right, and so he tried to coordinate their participation, and so they grew suspicious though when he asked them to pay for his hotel room and all his expenses, He's like, you could cover that f a Bootsy right grocery. Meanwhile, the Internet is becoming not quite common in nineteen ninety, so it existed, but it was not like the band couldn't look him up. Yeah, exactly,
so they couldn't. They didn't know that d Light was on tour and Bootsy Collins was with them playing the groove is in the heart on international stages. They're like, there's no way that's Bootsy trying to put together a benefit concert for the veterans of the First Gulf War.
The Alarm.
The band they were suspicious about this concert, right, this benefit, So they booted the almost Bootsy off their band bus right and he leaves with his luggage. And my favorite note is he also had with him a very large dog, possibly a pet wolf. People in the b and could not decide if it was a dogs. So was Van's going around with luggage in a possibly Penny's that tight rolls. So anyway, the band kicks this almost Bootsy off their bus. He angrily yells at them, you will be hearing from
my lawyers. You will regret this, babies, Elizabeth, that was not to occur. That was the last time ever heard anyone ever heard from this guy. It was the last time anyone ever seems to have heard from almost any of the almost Bootsies. The trend passed on. So what's that ridiculous takeaway here?
I know, I thought it was interesting when you were saying that Bootsy was like, I just want to play the music.
I didn't know what I was doing in terms of the business.
And that's you know what happens all the time. You get musicians who they're not they're artistic souls, they're not business minded folks, but yet it becomes a business. They're they're not a businessman, they're a business man.
Well said easy.
So I just feel for them and I feel for him because it's like, that's how they get taken advantage of.
Okay, they want to focus on the Artaren.
What's your ridiculous takeaway.
That I have never been Bootsy Collins for Halloween?
Oh? That is a crying shame, right, I mean.
How did I miss this one? I've got a lot of fun costumes here. I've got something to look forward to, all right, Well, as we wash away all of the funket's here? And yes, can I get a talkback produce a d.
Oh God?
I love je.
Saren Elizabeth? Can I just say how amazing you guys are one of my favorite podcasts ever. I stumbled on you back in the time when you did the Frank Sinolfred Junior kidnapping story, and I literally almost wanted to pitch my pants. It was so funny and so ridiculous in these times. I have to say, I respect everything you've.
Done in these times. Maybe I love making people pee themselves.
Yes you do love that, Yes I do. I do well.
I appreciate that sentiment from her that we do. We need to we need to keep it loose these days, guys, we.
All could use a laugh for oh well. As always. You can find us online Ridiculous Crime on the social media that's mostly Blue Sky and Instagram these days. From what I understand from the interns, we also still have Ridiculous Crime dot Com, our award winning website. I think we are now up for a Michelin Award this year. I'm very excited to see if our food will take us over the line.
That'd be amazing.
Yeah, So email us if you'd like it at that Ridiculous Crime at a gmail dot com and please start the email dear producer d And also you can leave us a talk back if you go to the iHeart app. Obviously we love to hear from you, guys. Please leave us a talkback and you may hear your voice here. Thanks for listening. We will catch you next crime. Ridiculous Crime is hosted by Elizabeth Dutton and Zarin Burnette, produced and edited by her own Defunk all star Dave Conston
and starring Annelie's Rutgers. It You doth Research is by Sequined top hat maker Marissa Brown and Star Shaped sunglass collector Alex French. Our theme song is by our house band James Blue and the RC's Thomas Lee and Travis Dutton. The host wardrobe provided by Botany five hundred. Guest Harry, makeup by Sparkleshot and mister Andre. Executive producers are boot Zilla Truthers, Ben Bolmen and Noel Brown.
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